Those infuriated by those '1984’ish automated traffic enforcement cameras may get a kick out of this one:
There are a couple of these near me that have been transformed into interesting street furniture-art installations. The first, in Brixton, has the top end melted away to form a curious ‘petals opening’ effect (courtesy of several car tyres set ablaze at the base) and the other seems to be entirely missing the top half – we assume some frenzied artisan took a chainsaw to it in a fit of creative indulgence. That, or he got one too many tickets.
I think these things – especially the ones in residential areas - have an interesting future and offer considerable potential for creative expression.
Its called a painball rifle.
Stand off to the side out of view of the camera and shoot the damn thing.
Why do I have the feeling that my security clearence may be temporary?
Sometimes, I have to leave the cosy confines of my office and go out on site. And sometimes my crazed Australian boss has to go to the same places, and, since he drives and I don’t, I wind up getting taken there and back in his car.
Did I sufficiently emphasize: crazed Australian boss?
The worst was one late-night return trip: after a fourteen-hour day, he was yawning visibly and audibly… we did the trip from Bracknell to Oxford in thirty-six minutes. Him yawning, me white-faced and quaking in terror.
And, at the end of it, as we zoomed into the centre of Oxford, still emitting Cherenkov radiation… a flash! A burst of brilliant light from a speed camera!
And, having been caught out, my crazed Australian boss mends his ways, and drives more circumspectly in the future. Which is an enormous relief to me, and I am tempted to go to that speed camera and deck it with garlands of flowers.
So, you drivers may find them obnoxious, but this particular lift-cadger has a soft spot in his heart for speed cameras.
[Nelson]Ha ha![/Nelson] This is so fucking stupid! Its a police car, its running a red light, give it a ticket. Huh? Okay, maybe there’s a special at the donut shop and the cops want to get there before all the warm ones are gone, but don’t you think that there’s the slight possibility that they might be headed somewhere on official business? Poetic justice indeed!
In the article, it says that the police are only allowed to run red lights on “Code One” type calls, not any official police business.
[quote]
“Chief Gainer said the department would be able to keep track of the emergency call logs and find out whether or not officers driving the cars were on Code One calls when the tickets were issued,” Sgt. Neill said. “But then we found out that wasn’t the case.”
[quote]
Whoosh, Billdo, whoosh.
Um, shouldn’t the cops be filling out paperwork themselves when they respond to a code 1 emergency?
I can’t speak for all agencies, but where I work, the dispatchers have the responsibility of entering the responding officers’ dispatch, en route, and on scene times into the incident card, as well as memoing in any miscellaneous info. I suppose an example of that could be, “Goddamnit, dispatch, log that that fucking camera just flashed me on 5th and Main!” All entries are time and date stamped, so proving who was where at what time and in which car would be a snap. The cops later use the information entered by us to help them fill out their reports in more detail.
If the department in the article is having trouble figuring out what officers are responding to Code 1 calls, then someone somewhere is not doing their job of making sure every single incident, word, and radio exchange is documented. Preferably in triplicate. Thank God we don’t have those cameras here.
I hope I’m making sense here, I’ve just come off a graveyard shift and the English language is beginning to lose all coherency for me.